


At Sunset

by skyeward



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyeward/pseuds/skyeward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vivienne feels eyes on her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Sunset

Vivienne was drawn slowly from the depths of the massive tome under her hands by a familiar sensation, that of eyes focused on her. Seeker Pentaghast was the only other person present, she mused, slowly turning a page so as to give the impression of continued absorption, and wasn't _she_ an interesting source for such an intent gaze? Vivienne was, of course, far too accomplished a player of the Game to respond outwardly, but she could hardly focus on her research under the relentless weight of both the attention and her own curiousity about it. She flicked her eyes expertly in Cassandra’s direction, just enough to inform the other woman of Vivienne’s awareness, then returned to not focusing at all on the book.

It was alright, she consoled herself as she turned another page without having read or absorbed a single thing from the previous one. The Nevarran woman was quite distracting in and of herself, and Vivienne could hardly be faulted for succumbing, just a bit.

“My dear,” stated that rich, deep voice abruptly, and only decades of practice kept Vivienne from jumping at the sound. Instead, she took a slow breath and held herself to only a slow half-turn towards the Seeker, eyebrows raised just so as she took in the increasingly-familiar chiselled jaw and the few scars that only seemed to accent it. She found herself just staring for several seconds, mind utterly and terrifyingly blank, before courtly instincts took over and her mouth moved independently.

“What was that, Seeker?”

“Cassandra, please,” the warrior replied, waving one gloved hand without lifting her eyes from her own book. She turned a page, and Vivienne suspected that the Seeker was absorbing no more from the paper than Vivienne herself was. “I was simply thinking. You call everyone that, do you not?”

“I do,” Vivienne acknowledged without rancor. It was, after all, the simple truth.

Cassandra made a small noise and turned another page far too quickly to have read it, drawing a small inward smile from Vivienne. Talented warrior Cassandra might be, of noble birth, and too damned handsome by half and more, but the Game was clearly not within the vast realm of her skills.

“Does that cause you concern?” Vivienne turned back towards her book, although the words remained meaningless ink scribbles, not daring to continue looking directly at Cassandra. Why, she couldn’t fathom - it wasn’t as if she’d never seen a handsome face before, although her dear Bastien, no matter how she cared for him, had never been quite the...specimen that Cassandra was. Regardless, she confined herself to quick sideways glances at the Seeker’s pensive olive face lest she find herself staring again.

“I would not call it ‘concern’,” Cassandra replied after a lengthy silence, “Perhaps just an...observation.”

“To what end, I wonder.”

A small, dark chuckle and a clumsy turning of the page, and Vivienne had to stifle an actual laugh that rose up from the space between her amused condescension and the roiling swamp of other emotions that surrounded it.

Silence lingered between them for a few moments, but although Vivienne bent all her mental energy towards it, the book beneath her hands yielded no more useful information than a blank stack of paper might have.

“Must all things be to an end?” Cassandra asked abruptly. “Can an idle thought not simply be expressed and moved on from, a beautiful sight appreciated, a...a-”

“A beautiful sight, you say?” Vivienne interrupted quite deliberately, injecting levity into her voice in an attempt to save the Seeker from further helpless stuttering. The woman’s face was already turning a deep shade of red. “What beautiful sight, surrounded by all these tomes and dust?”

Cassandra touched one finger to the book before her, dragging it across the page as she spoke slowly, that melodic voice soft but arresting.

“'Her silhouette against the setting sun was too dear, too sharp, too lovely for the eyes to bear. The light shone red and yellow from the rich dark umber of her skin, and my breath caught. Was the world meant to bear witness to such beauty? Was I?' Forgive me, my lady,” Cassandra said abruptly, her voice returning to its usual briskness as she stood quickly. “I am needed elsewhere.”

Vivienne, stunned into silence by the impromptu reading, could only watch Cassandra depart in a swirl of dust. When she finally gathered her head a moment later, she glanced down at the book the Seeker had been reading. Its title shone brightly in the red light of the sun dipping towards the horizon.

_Ways of the Oxman: A Study of Qunari Law and Custom_


End file.
